Bill Meléndez, who brought Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts characters to life in such classic half-hour specials as "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," died on September 2nd at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California. He was 91 years old.
José Cuauhtemoc "Bill" Melendez: Animator For Disney and Warner Bros.
He was born José Cuauhtemoc Meléndez in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico on November 15, 1916. His family emigrated to the United States, and Meléndez was educated in Douglas, Arizona, later getting his diploma at the Chouinard Art Institute (which later became the California Institute of the Arts).
After graduating in 1938, Meléndez joined Disney, where he was an in-betweener on numerous shorts and feature films like Bambi, Pinocchio, Fantasia and Dumbo. Three years later, he jumped to Leon Schlesinger's gang at Warner Bros.' animation studios where, as a member of Bob Clampett, Art Davis and Robert McKimson's units, he animated countless Looney Tunes shorts such as "Wabbit Twouble," "The Goofy Gophers," and "The Rattled Rooster."
In 1948, Meléndez jumped to United Productions of America (UPA), where he worked on such notable shorts as "Madeline" and "Gerald McBoing-Boing." His association there was short-lived, and he quickly moved on to smaller animation houses like Playhouse Productions and John Sutherland Productions.
During the 1950's, Meléndez directed and animated thousands of industrial and commercial productions, winning international acclaim at the Cannes, Edinburgh and Venice Film Festivals, plus over 150 commercial awards. Between 1957 and 1961 he won three Art Director's Medals. In 1961, he won 18 of a possible 20 awards at the American TV Commercials Festival.
It was in 1959 that Meléndez first met Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz. Meléndez had done some work for the the New York-based J. Walter Thompson ad agency, which wanted to use the Peanuts gang in ads for the Ford Motor Co. Schulz was impressed with Meléndez's work animating the classic characters, and remembered his name.
Peanuts' Exclusive Animator
In 1964, he and partner Lee Mendelson founded their own animation agency, Bill Meléndez Productions. One of his first jobs was animating 1965's "A Charlie Brown Christmas." In addition to his animation work, Meléndez also provided the voices for Snoopy and Woodstock.
Despite working on an extremely tight schedule and low budget, and dealing with several controversial elements (such as Linus' speach extensively quoting from the Bible), the half-hour special was a huge success, winning an Emmy and the George Foster Peabody Awards.
Schulz was so happy with "A Charlie Brown Christmas" that he made Meléndez the exclusive animator for all 75 subsequent Peanuts specials, 4 feature-length films, and any commercials that featured Snoopy and the gang.
Meléndez also animated several other classic comic strip characters, such as Babar, Garfield and Cathy, for their own specials, winning a 1987 Emmy for "Cathy." In 1979, his company animated a version of C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe for Children's Television Workshop, and he also contributed to Ralph Bakshi's partially-animated 1992 movie Cool World. Despite featuring a young Brad Pitt and Kim Basinger at the height of her popularity, that flick bombed at the box office, making $14 million.
Meléndez's last job was on 2006's "He's a Bully, Charlie Brown."
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